Surging demand for AI chips has made NVIDIA investors rich. Lithium might be next in line: demand is expected to grow 20x by 2040 as automakers go fully electric, far outstripping supply. Looking for a way to invest in this trend? EnergyX has developed patented tech that can extract 300% more lithium than current methods. The company has opened its investment round to the public for a limited time — here's what you need to know: ⏰ This investment opportunity will officially come to a close October 3rd at midnight PST. 📈 $104M+ invested to date, including a $50M round led by General Motors and a $5M grant from the U.S. Department of Energy 🤝 6 strategic agreements with top lithium producers ✅ 120+ patents across 19 patent families

Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang attributes the company's AI chip market dominance, maintaining an over 80% market share despite rising competition, to a decade-old strategic investment. Advocating for Nvidia's AI chips' cost-effectiveness and performance, Huang highlights the firm's transformation into a data center-focused entity and expansion into new markets.

Lithium will play a growing role in the future of human economic activity—from electric vehicle batteries to sustainable energy storage. An expected global shortage in lithium presents a massive opportunity to investors, similar to the current rush for AI chips. EnergyX has made major strides towards unlocking lithium supply. Its patented tech is backed by General Motors ($50M funding round), the U.S. Department of Energy ($5M grant), and POSCO, a leading lithium battery materials company. Their investment round is currently still open to the public.

Nvidia's dominance in AI chips has propelled it to immense market value, largely thanks to its GPU capabilities and CUDA software ecosystem. However, competitors like AMD, Intel, Cerebras, and SambaNova are developing innovative solutions to challenge Nvidia's supremacy in AI hardware. While Nvidia's lead remains secure for now, the landscape is dynamic, with multiple players striving to carve out their own niches in the AI market.

Nvidia is developing a new AI chip, the B20, tailored to comply with U.S. export controls for the Chinese market, leveraging its partnership with distributor Inspur. Its advanced H20 chip has reportedly seen a rapid growth in sales in China, with projections of selling over 1 million units worth $12 billion this year. U.S. pressure on semiconductor exports continues, with possible further restrictions and control measures on AI model development.

Nvidia is facing increased government scrutiny from the EU, UK, China, and the US Justice Department over its dominant market share in AI chips and sales practices. The company is rapidly building its legal and policy teams to address antitrust concerns amid profitable growth, as it commands 90 percent of the GPU market essential for AI systems. Nvidia is also adapting to increased competition oversight, with recent attention turning to its planned acquisition of Run.ai and impact on the AI supply chain.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is trying to build Nvidia into a one-stop shop for all of the key elements in a data center. The strategy is designed to make the company's offerings stickier for customers. Nvidia is also building a business that supplies AI-optimized Ethernet, a business that is expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue within a year. The competition in the space is growing, with companies like AMD bolstering their data-center offerings and chip suppliers like Intel offering services and systems to help customers build and operate AI tools.

VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has secured thousands of AI chips, including Nvidia H100 GPUs, to dole out to its AI portfolio companies in exchange for equity.

Nvidia became the second most valuable company in the world on Wednesday afternoon as its market capitalization hit $3.01 trillion. It became a $1 trillion company in May 2023, hitting $2 trillion in February this year. The company reported $14 billion in profit in May. Its AI accelerators make up between 70% and 95% of the market share for AI chips. Nvidia has plans to launch a new AI chip every year.

The next big narrative in crypto might be centered around GPU and cloud computing infrastructure, driven by the growing demand for artificial intelligence training and the asymmetry between rapidly advancing software and the slower pace of hardware development. Sam Altman's plan to raise trillions to accelerate chip manufacturing, the potential reunification of China and Taiwan, and the upcoming io.net token generation in April could catalyze interest in this narrative. Numerous projects in this sector could capitalize on this “GPU is the new oil” sentiment.

With governments and auto companies racing to switch to renewables, electric vehicles will soon be the only cars - and almost all of them run on lithium batteries. Not since the invention of the steam engine has a fuel technology promised such a globally transformative impact - and presented such an investment opportunity. U.S. DoE and General Motors-Backed EnergyX has designed patented technology that can extract up to 300% more lithium than traditional methods. Predicted to dominate extraction in the near future, huge excitement has surrounded the launch of their most recent open-to-the-public investment round. This century will be defined by lithium. Don't miss your chance to invest in the future.

NVIDIA's dominance in the AI space continues to be secured not just by hardware, but by its CUDA software ecosystem and proprietary interconnects. Alternatives like AMD's ROCM struggle to match CUDA's ease of use and performance optimization, ensuring NVIDIA's GPUs remain the preferred choice for AI workloads. Investments in the CUDA ecosystem and community education solidify NVIDIA's stronghold in AI compute.

VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has secured thousands of AI chips to exchange for equity.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, certain players are emerging as clear frontrunners in the short term. Tom White identifies four key groups that are poised to benefit significantly from the current AI boom: Big Tech firms, chipmakers, intellectual property lawyers, and the Big Four consulting firms. Big Tech firms, including giants like Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, are leveraging their vast resources—both data and financial capital—to dominate the AI space. These companies are not only investing heavily in AI development but are also driving the market forward with substantial funding initiatives. For instance, Google has announced a $120 million fund for global AI education, while OpenAI is on track to secure a staggering $6.5 billion in funding, highlighting the immense financial stakes involved. Chipmakers, particularly NVIDIA, are also critical to the AI ecosystem. The demand for advanced computing power to support AI workloads has skyrocketed, and NVIDIA is positioned as a leader in this domain. The company’s ability to meet the surging demand for GPUs has made it a key player in the AI race, with industry leaders like Larry Ellison and Elon Musk actively seeking to secure resources from them. Intellectual property lawyers are finding new opportunities as the legal landscape surrounding AI-generated content becomes increasingly complex. As generative AI platforms create content based on vast datasets, questions of ownership and copyright are emerging. Landmark cases are already in motion, and the outcomes will shape the future of AI and intellectual property rights. The Big Four consulting firms—EY, PwC, Deloitte, and KPMG—are also capitalizing on the AI trend. They are investing heavily in AI tools and practices to help businesses understand and implement AI effectively. This investment is expected to yield significant returns, with projections suggesting that these firms could generate billions in additional revenue from their AI advisory services. Despite the current excitement surrounding AI, White cautions that we are at a critical juncture. The initial hype may be giving way to a more sobering reality as the industry grapples with the practicalities of AI implementation. The race is far from over, and while the starting positions are established, the ultimate success will depend on how these players navigate the challenges ahead. The future of AI is not just about who starts strong but also about who can sustain their momentum and adapt to the evolving landscape.

The US Department of Justice has sent subpoenas to Nvidia and other companies seeking evidence that the chipmaker violated antitrust laws. Antitrust officials are concerned that Nvidia is making it harder to switch to other suppliers and penalizing buyers that don't exclusively use its artificial intelligence chips. Nvidia claims that its market dominance stems from the quality of its products. The company prioritizes customers who can make use of its products in ready-to-go data centers as soon as they're provided to prevent stockpiling and to speed up the broader adoption of AI.

Chip design used to be a high-profile role, with the most famous chip designers viewed similarly to how famous machine learning researchers are seen today. Many students flocked to the industry as the number of chip companies boomed and the field was in demand. However, as market dynamics changed, the supply of hardware engineers grew too high. The high capital costs for chip manufacturing drove the number of employers down to a handful of major chip makers. The field of AI research will likely play out the same way.

Nvidia is acquiring AI infrastructure optimization firm Run:ai for approximately $700 million to enhance its DGX Cloud AI platform, allowing customers improved management of their AI workloads. The acquisition will support complex AI deployments across multiple data center locations. Run:ai had previous VC investments and a broad customer base, including Fortune 500 companies.

Apple and Nvidia are in talks to invest in OpenAI as part of a fundraising round that would value OpenAI at above $100 billion. It is an unusual move for Apple, as the company doesn't usually invest in startups. Nvidia has stepped up its investment activity in the past two years, putting its money into AI-related companies. OpenAI is one of the largest users of Nvidia's AI chips.

Nvidia's new Blackwell chip demonstrated top per GPU performance in MLPerf's LLM Q&A benchmark, showcasing significant advancements with its 4-bit floating-point precision. However, competitors like Untether AI and AMD also showed promising results, particularly in energy efficiency. Untether AI's speedAI240 chip, for instance, excelled in the edge-closed category, highlighting diverse strengths across new AI inference hardware.

Nvidia has unveiled a new generation of artificial intelligence chip architecture called Rubin. The company only just announced its upcoming Blackwell model in March - those chips are still in production and expected to ship to customers later in 2024. Nvidia has pledged to release new AI chip models on a one-year rhythm. The less-than-three-month turnaround from Blackwell to Rubin underscores the competitive frenzy in the AI chip market.

xAI has announced raising $6 billion in funding to help bring the startup's first products to market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate the research and development of future technologies. The funding comes from several sources, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Arabian Prince Al Waleed bin Talal. Elon Musk plans to launch xAI's new data center by the fall of 2025. Musk has said he would prefer to build products outside of Tesla when it comes to AI and robotics unless he gets more control.

Elon Musk says that he will ‘discuss' with Tesla regarding investing $5 billion in xAI, his own private artificial intelligence company.

Scale has become the predominant driver of performance in the field of AI and machine learning. The substantial capital required has led to market consolidation, with only a few suppliers capable of employing productive ML researchers. This dynamic mirrors the historical consolidation seen in chip design, suggesting a future downturn in the prestige and salaries for ML roles as supply outstrips demand. Aspiring ML professionals should carefully assess their career motivations in light of these industry trends.

AMD unveiled its latest AI processors, including the MI325X accelerator due in Q4 2024, at the Computex trade show. It also detailed plans to compete with Nvidia by releasing new AI chips annually. The MI350 series, expected in 2025, promises a 35-fold performance increase in inference compared to the MI300 series. The MI400 series is set for a 2026 release.

Ramp's Q1 analysis reveals a 293% year-over-year increase in AI-related spending among its customers, outpacing overall software spend growth, with a significant adoption in non-tech sectors like healthcare and financial services, indicating a broader integration of AI into various industries. Despite a general slowdown in new investments in AI, companies already using AI are doubling down, with average spending on AI tools growing by 138% year-over-year, while finance tools also see increased usage and businesses maintain cautious approaches to travel expenditure.

Nvidia is addressing a significant challenge in telecommunications: the strain that artificial intelligence (AI) places on wireless networks. The company believes that AI can also provide solutions to these issues through its new AI-RAN platform, which aims to enhance the efficiency and performance of mobile networks. Collaborating with partners such as T-Mobile, Ericsson, and Nokia, Nvidia is set to test this innovative approach, with T-Mobile being the first to implement AI-RAN. The AI-RAN platform is designed to utilize vast amounts of data to create algorithms that optimize network adjustments and predict real-time capacity needs. This integration of AI into the radio access network is expected to make mobile networks smarter and faster, allowing telecommunications companies to run third-party AI applications at the network's edge. T-Mobile's CEO, Mike Sievert, highlighted the transformative potential of AI-RAN, while acknowledging the challenges involved in its implementation. As AI applications, particularly those related to augmented reality and AI-powered assistants, continue to grow, there is a pressing need to manage the increasing mobile data traffic that may exceed the capabilities of current 5G networks. Traditional networks were primarily designed for voice and basic data services, but the modern landscape demands more advanced solutions to support technologies like autonomous vehicles and smart factories. Nvidia's strategy involves positioning AI-RAN as a foundational element for future advancements, including the anticipated rollout of 6G technology. The AI-RAN Alliance, which includes Nvidia, T-Mobile, Nokia, and Ericsson, is actively working to harness the potential of AI in network operations. The alliance aims to tackle the challenges posed by the massive volume of data generated by AI-driven applications. Experts emphasize that network optimization will be crucial, as machine learning algorithms will need to dynamically adjust configurations to enhance performance and manage resources effectively. This collaborative effort seeks to ensure that telecommunications infrastructure can keep pace with the evolving demands of AI and emerging technologies.

Elon Musk's xAI is in talks with investors to raise $3B in a funding round that would value the artificial intelligence startup at $18B.

High-profile AI startups like Inflection AI, Stability AI, and Anthropic are facing financial pressures as they struggle with the high costs of developing generative AI models. While OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, has shown revenue growth, competitors like Anthropic and Stability AI grapple with substantial gaps between revenue and operating expenses. Microsoft's investment in AI hints at the tech industry's belief in AI's long-term profitability, despite the current challenges in monetizing these expensive technologies.

Nvidia is now the most valuable public company in the world. Its market cap surpassed Microsoft's $3.32 trillion on Tuesday, reaching a high of $3.34 trillion. Nvidia's shares are up more than 170% so far this year. Its market cap hit $3 trillion for the first time earlier this month. Nvidia's rise has been so rapid the company has yet to be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the stock benchmark of the 30 most valuable US companies.

Nvidia is now the most valuable public company in the world. Its market cap surpassed Microsoft's $3.32 trillion on Tuesday, reaching a high of $3.34 trillion. Nvidia's shares are up more than 170% so far this year. Its market cap hit $3 trillion for the first time earlier this month. Nvidia's rise has been so rapid the company has yet to be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the stock benchmark of the 30 most valuable US companies.